Sade “Lovers Rock” CD (2000)

Details: “Lovers Rock is the fifth studio album by Sade, released in 2000 on Epic Records. The album was titled after a style of reggae music known as lovers rock, noted for its romantic sound and content, which front woman Sade Adu listened to in her youth. Fantastic condition CD.

Description: “… Britishness had long shaped Sade, but here it’s literalized. The album’s title and the sounds throughout point to the specific style of romantic reggae that shaped much of London youth culture in the 1970s. Lovers Rock was also, for Adu, who was then approaching middle age, a full circle meaning: She was spiritually indebted to the genre, as her career in music had accidentally been kickstarted by a chance run-in at a lovers rock concert. And the relationship that underscored much of it had led her to spend years in Jamaica during that sabbatical. I’ve always been compelled by the absence of a possessive in a noun (Lovers) that often requires it.

The album stood out all the more in 2000, as pop became a shiny, slick vision of some imagined, tech-mitigated Jetsons-style future. Unlike other ’80s acts desperately seeking reinvention in the trends of the day, Sade avoided obvious dialogue with the charts. There are nods to hip-hop in the drums on “Flow” and digital experimenting in the synths on “By Your Side,” but for the most part, the band opted out. And yet Lovers Rock proved to be predictive. Echos of its style, the kind of mellow, vibey pop that could very well be described as Sade-core, have been palpable throughout the past decade, from the rhythmic R&B of Jessie Ware and Rhye to an entire generation of rappers. Among the most obviously indebted to Sade is Drake, whose grotesque registry of commemorative tattoos includes two of Adu’s face. The “dark, sexy” sound he introduced early in his career are direct reflections of the band’s influence. “I’ll call them ‘Sade moments,’ where you hear it, it hits you, and you feel something,” he told MTV in 2010.”—Pitchfork 

Grade: NM (CD/Cover)

CD TRACK LISTING:

1. By Your Side
2. Flow
3. King Of Sorrow
4. Somebody Already Broke My Heart
5. All About Love
6. Slave Song
7. The Sweetest Gift
8. Every Word
9. Immigrant
10. Lovers Rock
11. It’s Only Love That Gets You Through